


Too Hot To Handle

by ruff_ethereal



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: A four letter word is used exactly once though, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Awkward Ill-Prepared!Mal, Explicit Language, F/F, First Meetings, Latina!Evie, Mild Language, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 20:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4891915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On her first day in her new college and country, Mal finds out that she is most definitely not made for the tropical weather and proceeds to melt and suffer in the heat, then gets saved by a friendly--and very attractive--local.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Hot To Handle

**Author's Note:**

> For trouble-with-an-attitude on tumblr.

_'Oh, my god, I'm going to die here…'_ Mal thought as she crumpled on the hot, unforgiving ground, sweat pouring down every pore of her body, her vision growing hazy as her now useless bag of equipment dropped to her side.

Around her, every other student in this _godforsaken_ campus walked past her, most of them ignoring her, some of them laughing at the poor little foreigner's suffering, the rest throwing her sympathetic looks before all continued on their way.

Frankly, Mal didn't blame them; if she were them, she wouldn't want to spend any more time than was strictly necessary in these hallways, and really, what did they care about the new transferee who so far had been nothing but a mild but still anti-social bitch to the one or two people she's spoken to for more than ten seconds?

She still hated every _single one of them_ and wished them _all_ slow, painful, horrible deaths or something equally traumatic and terrible because _'G_ _oddamnit_ _I'm_ melting _here someone help_ _me_ _out already!_ _'_

Mal let out a pathetic little whine, not for any plea of sympathy to the passersby, but rather an expression of the new low her life had gotten to, the culmination of so many bad ideas and hastily rushed into decisions. _Why_ did she move out of the country than just a couple of states to escape her mother? _Why_ did she chose a tropical country with exactly two seasons—scorching hot and stormy rain—instead of someplace more temperate? And _why_ in the world did she choose _this_ college instead of the many other just-fine institutes of learning in this continent?

She hadn't expected it to get any reaction from anyone, really, expected to just keep on kneeling there till she passed out and the medics were called to either rush her to the clinic or take away her corpse, but now there was someone walking over to her:

A _very_ pretty someone, a brown-skinned, obviously local woman in a striking blue dress, luxurious hair of that same shade, and dark brown eyes of chocolate that just brimmed with concern and worry, and who seemed to have some sort of divine, radiant glow about her.

If it was any consolation to Mal, the bright red her entire face had turned to from all the heat hid her blush.

She asked something in Spanish—if Mal's brain hadn't been broiling for the past hour, she probably would have remembered the several courses of the language she had taken during high school and the refreshers last month and figured out what she said, but as of now, she just looked at the woman with the helpless, confused expression of the well and truly _screwed_.

“Are you okay?” She repeated, this time in English. The woman paused. “No, I'm sorry, stupid question, don't answer that—can you stand up?”

Mal whimpered again. “No, I can not.” She would have said if she could. She assumed the blue haired beauty would have called campus healthcare and got a trained medic to come save her. Instead, she knelt down, and looped one of Mal's arms around her shoulder. “Ready?” She asked.

Mal let out a much shorter whine that was probably some attempt at “Yes.”

“One, two, three!”

Up they went. It wasn't a straight ascent, as either of them would have liked, but one filled with lots of stumbling, knee buckling, and Mal's shoulder hitting the nearby wall. It hurt like hell but since she was already experiencing suffering like she'd never had before, it really wasn't that bad.

Somehow, with a hot woman supporting most of her weight, Mal's legs found it within themselves to start working again, and she awkwardly stepped about till she had both of her leather booted feet flat on the floor and taking a slight bit of the load of her saviour.

“Is your dorm near here?” She asked.

Mal groaned in a negative sounding fashion—incidentally, that was _exactly_ why she had gotten into this horrible situation in the first place.

“Let's get to mine, then...” Her saviour replied, before they grabbed Mal's bag and went stumbling off, away from the halls and the classrooms, and back to the dorms.

Mal was going to miss her very first class on her very first day in her very first college, but you know what? Her education could go fuck itself for the moment.

* * *

As part of its “green” reputation, the college used only the bare minimum of electricity for cooling—there were barely any AC units to be seen anywhere, and the students and staff had to make do with electric fans, the natural rain forest's worth of plants and natural shade, and the campus' own architecture, designed to “maximize air flow” and provide “optimum insulation, natural cooling, and protection against the elements.”

The administration said it was their way of saving the environment and preserving nature for future generations.

Mal thought they were just really, really, _really_ cheap, and/or really wanted their students to suffer greatly _and_ be in crippling debt to them, too.

They weren't _complete_ sadists and/or cheapskates, though: every dorm room, most of the classrooms, the libraries, and a choice few spaces where people could hang out and/or study were 100% air-conditioned, 24/7, with a maintenance crew that kept all of those machines humming at maximum power and miraculously never breaking down.

The difference between those areas and the rest of the campus was like powdered chocolate milk drink mixed with water and hot cocoa made with 100% authentic tablets and fresh, full-cream milk—one was completely, undeniably, objectively much, much, _much_ better than the other.

The first blast of cool air on Mal's face was wonderful; being helped inside to the room heavenly; her saviour closing the door and keeping all of that precious cool air from escaping and keeping it inside those four walls, even more so.

Mal's saviour was probably going to help her onto the bed on one side with the luxuriously soft looking comforter and the pillow, or the fancy ergonomic desk chair that was facing out and ready for someone to slid in and smoothly spin round to face the computer, but really, Mal was perfectly content with letting her arm slip from her shoulders and the rest of her body and face hit the floor.

Whumph.

The carpeting was thin and made of leftover scraps but Mal didn't care, it was cooler down here and that was all that mattered. She could feel her saviour looking at her strangely, but if that meant she was going to allow her to stay here on the floor, well, she was just fine with that.

“Just moved here, didn't you?” She asked as she carefully deposited Mal's bag to one side.

“My first 24 hours, actually.” Mal replied.

Her saviour laughed. “How're you liking my country so far?” She asked playfully.

“Well, aside from the fact that I nearly died from heat exhaustion just now, this campus is in horrific lack of air-conditioning pretty much _everywhere,_ and I'm going to miss every single class I have today, _just fine,_ I suppose! I think I'll like it _much_ better when I see for myself all the pluses the travel guides mentioned, like the food, the culture, and the beautiful women!”

Mal heard soft thumps on the carpeted floor. She turned her head as soon as she saw a sandal-wearing-foot in her peripheral vision. Her saviour knelt down on the floor, and quickly brought their faces close together—but a few inches really.

“So, I don't count as a 'beautiful woman' to you?” She purred, her tone more teasing than anything else.

Mal got a good look at her—her first good look of her, actually. She thought it was the sun, the heat exhaustion, and the impending aid that gave her saviour that glow earlier, but now that her brain had been taken out of the large-scale broiler that was the outside world, she realized it was because she was rather attractive.

Very, very, _very_ attractive, actually.

She was _also_ starting to realize that her saviour had a very nice, raspy yet soothing voice, one she'd want to hear during late night radio shows, or whispering dirty words in her—wait, what?

Mal blushed again—she hoped her face was still red from all the heat, but after being cooled off for so long, it most probably wasn't. “You do, actually!” She blurted. “My bad; I don't think my brain was functioning too well from the overheating and couldn't completely process how _damn_ good you look.”

Mal started cursing repeatedly in her head. _'Too far, too far, too far...'_ She thought.

Her saviour grinned. “No need to apologize—my name's Evie, by the way.”

Mal blushed even harder—this time, she was quite certain it was obvious it wasn't the heat. “Mal.” She mumbled.

Evie gave her one last radiant smile before standing back up. “You really should freshen up and get a change of clothes; letting all that sweat air-dry is going to be _really_ bad for your skin.”

“Oh, I'd _love_ to,” Mal said as she pushed herself up from the floor to a slightly more dignified kneeling position. “But I figure I'm probably going to almost roast to death in the sun again if I try to get back to my dorm room, not to mention the fact that I don't happen to have spare clothes on me.”

“You can just use my bathroom and borrow some of my clothes.” Evie offered.

Mal smirked at her. “You always this generous to foreigners who've found themselves way in over their heads?”

“Or maybe I just _really_ like the idea of having a hot girl naked in my bathroom and wearing my clothes, ever thought of that?” Evie grinned in a predatory fashion, one that incited a reaction inside Mal that was most definitely not “Run.”

Mal stared back at Evie for a few moments, mouth slowly dropping open and eyes opening wide, before she pushed herself back up to her feet. “Right, where's the bathroom? No, silly me, probably about the same place as every other student dorm in this college, right?” Mal paused, Evie just kept on smiling at her. “… Don't answer that question...” She mumbled as she quickly shuffled off to the bathroom.

Like the outside world and Evie's dorm room, stepping into her bathroom was stepping into an entirely different world—one filled to the brim with all manner of beauty products, both commercially produced and homemade if the containers and the labeling were anything to go by; hairdryers, curling irons, a rolling brush and other electronic hair care devices; luxuriously soft looking towels in a deep, vibrant blue.

The strong scent of cinnamon and apples lazily floating over all of that as one lovely final touch.

Mal realized that this was a very personalized, very well-loved, and very frequently used bathroom—a location in which several rituals were done with almost religious care, where a written or unwritten system existed and dictated where every item was supposed to be and how and when they were supposed to be, and was just filled with really, really, _really_ nice things—all of them Evie's.

Mal also realized how filthy and disgusting she was right now—covered head to toe in a sticky layer of moisture and mostly dried sweat, her clothes soaked through with the stuff, and her purple hair sticking to her face in wet, unflattering clumps, and of _course_ the layer of filth she had gotten from crumpling on both the ground outside and Evie's nice floor—and she realized that she really, really, _really_ didn't want to risk ruining anything inside this bathroom with her nastiness— _especially_ because it was Evie's.

“The regular soap and the shampoo's in the little cubby there.” Evie said as she suddenly appeared behind Mal. She yelped, and nearly jumped into the air she didn't realize that would have meant slipping on the tiles and breaking her head or something, or much worse, awkwardly crashing into Evie.

“Thanks...” Mal muttered as her heart rate raced higher and higher. She noticed that Evie was holding a stack of clothes and a fresh blue towel in her arms, smiled at her in thanks, before grabbing the whole thing and locking herself into the bathroom.

Door shut, arms filled with two towels and a fresh change of clothes, and more hygiene products and styling products than most people would ever need or want within arms-reach, Mal decided she might as well go and take a shower. She set the clothes and towel down on a conveniently empty surface, pulled back the shower curtain, and started stripping.

Any hesitance leftover from earlier disappeared as she realized and felt the full extent of her grossness as soon as she had to peel off parts of her clothing that had stuck to her skin. _'Oh god, how far I have fallen from stepping out the plane last night, cool, confident, and ready to start my new life in my new home...'_ She thought to herself.

She tossed her clothes to a far corner, wincing as she heard them land on the tiles with quiet, disturbing, _wet_ noises. She briefly debated saving her panties for later, before she realized that wearing them again would completely defeat the purpose of showering, and laundering and drying them in Evie's bathroom was probably going way beyond the unspoken limits of her hospitality.

Mal realized she was going to have to go commando. Which might be for the best, considering the heat and the humidity outside was only going to get worse as the morning turned to noon. And which might be for the worst, considering she was going to have to talk or interact with Evie as soon as she stepped out, and what was she going to think if she found out—

Mal's train of thought abruptly stopped as soon as she realized she was standing completely naked in an otherwise total—and hot—stranger's bathroom, filthy as hell, and having even dirtier thoughts. Amidst self-disgust, confusion, and more arousal than she'd care to admit, she jumped into the shower, put the curtain between her and the rest of the bathroom, and turned the water to “Cold.”

For being a country that experienced the kind of temperature averages, lows, and highs it had, the college's water supply was cold—really, really, _really_ cold. Somehow much colder than a cold shower taken in the middle of winter back overseas, which was why Mal shrieked, jumped, and proceeded to make high-pitched noises of _suffering._

She shut the water, and stood there with her hand on the lever, shivering, dripping, and whimpering pathetically.

Knock-knock. “You okay in there?” Evie asked. (Mal gave her points for clearly trying her _very best_ not to laugh.)

“Yes...” Mal whimpered, if only so Evie wouldn't be inclined to come in and see her like this.

“Since no one seems to have told you, all the unheated water in the school's always this cold.”

“Thanks...” Mal mumbled before she jerked the lever half-way to hot like she did earlier this morning—she didn't want to know just how hot the school's completely _heated_ water could get.

A much more relaxing, much warmer, and saner rain of water came pouring out of the shower head, figuratively and literally washing away the trauma of the icy blast of earlier. Mal wanted to just stand in it for an hour or two, just letting the water soak her skin and hair completely and form a lovely steamy mist all over her, but she forced herself to shut it off as soon as she was just soaked enough to start scrubbing and shampooing.

She'd be surprised if the school _didn't_ enforce strict rules on water usage—and especially heated water—and the idea of Evie resenting her forever when the water in her showers suddenly turned cold or just stopped completely didn't sit well with Mal.

She brushed the wet locks clinging over her eyes, and found the soap and shampoo Evie mentioned. She noted that it was an almost fresh bar with no brand name stamped on it, and the pump bottle was blank but for a handwritten label on it, presumably Evie's handwriting.

 _'Great,'_ Mal thought, _'either she's made these herself or these are the soaps and shampoos you specially order over the internet and pay through the nose for.'_ With the kind of care usually seen with delicate, ancient china, she picked up the soap and started scrubbing with it. She decided to ask Evie where she'd got it and how much it'd set her back to get some of her own; it had a very mild scent, was gentle on her skin, and left it smooth, soft, and just feeling _amazing._

Then she got to the shampoo and briefly thought of how she could steal both of them and somehow not have Evie notice. Aside from the fact that whatever she was lathering into her hair smelled _wonderful_ —apples and cinnamon, her new favourite scent second only to her beloved strawberries—she could feel it working its way into her scalp, her roots, and the fibers of her hair and doing all sorts of magical things to it that she couldn't quantify but she did know was much more than any store-bought shampoo had ever done for her.

Mal rinsed off and the sweet-spicy scent didn't even wash away, to her delight—she had this feeling whatever this stuff was, it was going to cling to her for the entire day and late into the night, and the rest of her was feeling and smelling just as amazing and prepared to take on anything the world might throw at her.

Then she realized that her towels were purple, not blue, that she was in Evie's bathroom and Evie herself was probably still in this room and waiting for her to come out, and Mal started panicking all over again.

She decided not to use Evie's hairdryer, or ask her for permission to use it—she was just going to have to settle for a towel dry and wrapping it up. She looked down at the neatly folded clothes nearby, hesitated for a few moments, then gingerly picked them up.

The top was a light cotton shirt, plain white for the blue sleeves, and the bottom a skirt in a matching shade of blue, with a flowing and loose style well-suited for the sweltering, humid weather outside. It was also going to be pretty useful since Mal was going to have to go without underwear for a while.

Her mind briefly wondered if Evie just happened to have thrown in a pair of hers by accident, or as a little joke, but why would she have—Mal started putting them on as quickly as she could without risking damage or stretching it out.

Fortunately for the both of them, they fit. Not perfectly, the curves and the contours were obviously made with Evie's figure in mind, and this wasn't even going into the style and aesthetics, but they were good enough to last through classes and until Mal could get back to her own dorm later.

She unwrapped the towel from her head, looked in the mirror, and combed her hair with her fingers. When she got it into a half-way decent semblance of its usual style, Mal checked herself out. _'I look… not hideous.'_ She thought with a smile. ' _I even look kinda hot with Evie's clothes on.'_

Mal stopped and frowned. “Why is that turning me on so much…?” She quietly mumbled at her reflection.

She shook her head. She'd wasted enough of their time being a foreigner _way_ in over their head, and the kind local who was graciously helping them in spite of their self-inflicted stupidity and lack of preparation. “You stopped being a teenager without a clue when you stepped on that plane,” she said to herself. “You're in your new home now—time to be a responsible, independent adult.”

Mal grinned at her reflection, threw her used towels in the hamper nearby, and opened the bathroom door. Evie was waiting just outside for her with a completely disarming smile on her face, and she quickly realized she was most definitely _not_ nor ready to be a responsible, independent adult if she could get flustered and panicky over a hot girl before she really _did_ anything.

“Thought you might need this.” Evie said as she offered Mal a black garbage bag.

 _'How thoughtful, and coincidentally, a pretty fitting symbol for what my life has become,'_ Mal thought to herself. “Thanks.” She said as she took it, scooped up her filthy used clothes off the floor, and tied up the bag with a secure knot that ensured that she would not contaminate Evie's dorm room with her sweaty, stinky vileness any more than she already had.

“I owe you big time for this, Evie.” Mal said as she stepped out of her bathroom and back to her dorm proper.

Evie smiled. “It's no problem—though, can I get your number?” She asked as she pulled out her phone and unlocked it.

Mal blushed a little. “What, so you can ask me out on a date or something?”

“Well, it was actually so I can call you and ask when I can get my clothes back...” Evie's smile took a turn for the predatory and a little but not unpleasantly terrifying once more. “But you know what, that is actually a _very_ good idea...~”

Mal never took someone's phone so fast. She put her name and number in Evie's phone at lightning speed, before handing it back. “Oh, would you look at the time? I'm pretty sure I can make it to my next class, and not miss my entire first day of school after all! Thanks for again for saving me earlier and letting me use your shower and borrow your clothes, I'm going to go now.” She said as she started slowly inching to the door.

Evie nodded, still smiling. “Try not to melt out there again, Mal!”

Mal shivered. _'Oh man, why is it so hot when she says my name?'_ She thought. “I will!” She said as she grabbed her bag and got out of the door as quickly as she could.

Even though she'd just come out of Evie's air-conditioned room and a refreshing shower, Mal felt hot, uncomfortable, and more than a little bothered.

And she just knew, it most _definitely_ wasn't the heat.


End file.
